Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta emails Cheryl Mills, who is one of Clinton’s lawyers at the time, as well as being her former chief of staff. He writes, “On another matter….and not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later.”

A snippet from the front page of the NYT on March 3, 2015. (The headline published on the website, is different than the print version published the next morning.) (Credit: New York Times)

The article by Michael Schmidt is entitled, “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.” It appears as the main front page headline on the printed version of the New York Times the next morning with a slightly different title.

This article also reveals that Clinton’s aides took no action to preserve emails sent or received from her as required by the Federal Records Act. It points out that she left the State Department in February 2013, but didn’t give the department her work-related emails until December 2014. It suggests she may have violated federal regulations by exclusively using a personal email account for public business while secretary of state.

The Times further reveals that existence of Clinton’s personal email account was discovered by the House Benghazi Committee when it sought correspondence between Clinton and her aides. (The New York Times, 3/2/2015)

Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) comments on that day’s news report that Clinton used a private email account on a private server for all her email communications while secretary of state: “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario – short of nuclear winter – where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business.”

Baron, who worked at NARA from 2000 to 2013, adds, “I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business.” (The New York Times, 3/2/2015)

A May 2016 State Department inspector general’s report will claim that Kerry was “not involved in any of the discussions regarding Secretary Clinton’s emails and that he first became aware of her exclusive use of a personal email account when an aide informed him around the time the information became published,” on March 2, 2015. This is according to an interview Kerry had with the inspector general’s staff. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

However, in March 2016, the Washington Post will report that in the summer of 2014, “Kerry resolved to round up the Clinton emails and deliver them to Congress as quickly as possible,” suggesting that he was involved and did have earlier knowledge. (The Washington Post, 3/27/2016)

The four are Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, and Philippe Reines. All four of them frequently used personal email accounts for work matters while Clinton was secretary of state, though they also had government email accounts. According to a 2016 department inspector general’s report, the four of them hand over “email from their personal accounts during the summer of 2015.” (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

However, on March 12, 2015, Douglas Cox, a professor who focuses on records preservation laws, says: “While Clinton may have technical arguments for why she complied with [the various] rules that have been discussed in the news, the argument that Clinton complied with the letter and spirit of the law is unsustainable.” (Politifact, 3/12/2015)

In May 2016, the State Department’s inspector general will conclude that department officials “did not—and would not—approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business.” Her daily use of a private email account for work matters is also determined to be in violation of department rules. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had been pursuing the public release of all of Clinton’s emails. CREW has been one of the top political watchdog organizations, targeting unethical and corrupt behavior in both major political parties. But in August 2014, CREW was effectively taken over by David Brock, a close Clinton ally who runs the main Super PAC [political action committee] for her presidential campaign.

In December 2012, CREW filed the first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking Clinton’s emails from when she was secretary of state, and that began a long legal battle over the issue.

However, after Clinton’s email scandal becomes public following a New York Times story on it on March 2, 2015, the new CREW leadership decides not to pursue the issue. Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief counsel who led the search for the emails, will later comment, “It was made quite clear to me that CREW and I would not be commenting publicly on the issue of Secretary Clinton using a personal email account to conduct agency business. The fact that we said nothing on that subject says volumes.” Weismann soon quits CREW as a result.

Others also quit. Louis Mayberg, a cofounder of CREW, quits in March 2015, saying, “I have no desire to serve on a board of an organization devoted to partisanship.” He also says that CREW’s lack of action regarding the email scandal is another key factor in his departure. (Bloomberg News, 4/11/2016)